Gamut - Sheridan College comic magazine 1 1

[Jesse-Lee]

Today, I got a copy of Gamut, a comic magazine produced in 1975 by the students of the cartooning class at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. I'm sharing it here because I thought it was really cool, and maybe others would like to know more about the history behind it.

First, here's the book - it's the error edition of the first issue, with the wrong or incomplete coloring on the cover:

 

There's an excellent and thorough article about Sheridan and this book in particular on Comic Book Daily, that I believe was written by a fellow board member - @ecgt? I'll link to the article here, and I'll pull out a couple of short excerpts and share some pics of the book's interior. Here's the article: https://www.comicbookdaily.com/columns/forgotten-silver/the-gamut-of-comic-creators-at-sheridan-college-in-the-1970s/

Quote

With the emergence of Nelvana in 1971 and the rapid growth of Sheridan College as a premier animation school (which would become a feeder school for Disney and the major Canadian animation studios), it was inevitable that the school would start to offer courses in comic book creation. It is unclear when the first program focusing on comic books started at the college, but this occurred sometime in the early 1970s. What makes this early era of Sheridan College special in terms of comic book creation is that it managed to procure the talents of several well-known American creators as guest lecturers during the decade and this led to at least five comics published through the school’s Tabloid Press.

Quote

 

The first comic book printed by Tabloid Press was 1973’s The Invader by Will Eisner. This twelve-page, oversized (11” x 16”) magazine featured a brand new The Spirit story. The five-page story was in full colour and the remaining pages of the magazine were blank (with some preliminary sketches). There are several reasons why this magazine is notable: it was the first comic produced by the college and was one of the few new The Spirit comics published after the 1960s. Of greater significance is what led to the comic being published in Oakville in the first place: Eisner created the story with his students while lecturing for one year at Sheridan College from 1972-1973.

It is not clear if Eisner was the first well-known American comic creator to lecture at Sheridan College, but he certainly would not be the last. Mike Ploog, Neal Adams, Berni Wrightson and Jeff Jones also lectured at the college during the early to mid-1970s. Although Eisner only taught at the college for one academic year, much of the rest of his career turned to teaching, as in 1974 he began a nineteen-year tenure teaching at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. Although Eisner was no longer part of the faculty at Sheridan College, he continued to be loosely involved in their cartooning program and contributed to the subsequent comic series Gamut, which ran for at least four issues from 1975-1979.

Gamut was a black and white magazine-sized publication that featured the work of students in the cartooning program, as well as work (mostly covers and sketches) by the famous guest instructors who participated in the program. The endeavour was developed by the college’s cartooning coordinator, Walter Hanson. At least two well-known Canadian Silver Age creators who were alumni by the time that the first issue of Gamut was released also contributed to the series: Vincent Marchesano and Jim Craig.

 

If this is interesting to you, I really suggest you go read the whole piece, it's really well done.

Here are some interior photos, featuring work by Wrightson, Adams and Eisner, including a rough-sketch page from Wrightson of his story "The Gourmet" from Plop! #1, and his original, unfinished "Bat-Bunny," looking a bit like Captain Carrot:

Edited October 1, 2021 by Jesse-Lee

[Qalyar]

Gamut is pretty fantastic, and your copy looks to be exceptionally nice (plus, it's the cover error -- missing the red ink -- which is pretty striking). I agree with the article's author; in general, this series has been overlooked and dismissed as a college fanzine when it's actually an early showcase of important later talent (plus Eisner!).

And like the author of that article, I've never seen copies of #3 or #4 live either. None of the Gamut issues are easy books, but those last two are tough.

[ecgt]

Thanks for tagging me @Jesse-Lee. I did write this article. Sorry that it has taken me a month and a half to respond to you: I have been on hiatus due to a series of family emergencies. I am planning to return to my "Forgotten Silver" column at Comic Book Daily soon.

Gamut is a special series that continues to fly under the radar (like so many comics from the Canadian Silver Age). I own the first two issues and plan to purchase the others at some point down the road, but as I mention in my article (and as @Qalyarmentions here) the last two issues are hard to find.

Your error copy of # 1 looks like it is great shape. I have seen other examples of the error cover, but they don't come to market often. I'm glad you are enjoying some vintage Canadiana and thanks for reading my article!

Cheers, brian

[Jesse-Lee]

On 11/17/2021 at 5:37 PM, ecgt said:

Thanks for tagging me @Jesse-Lee. I did write this article. Sorry that it has taken me a month and a half to respond to you: I have been on hiatus due to a series of family emergencies. I am planning to return to my "Forgotten Silver" column at Comic Book Daily soon.

Gamut is a special series that continues to fly under the radar (like so many comics from the Canadian Silver Age). I own the first two issues and plan to purchase the others at some point down the road, but as I mention in my article (and as @Qalyarmentions here) the last two issues are hard to find.

Your error copy of # 1 looks like it is great shape. I have seen other examples of the error cover, but they don't come to market often. I'm glad you are enjoying some vintage Canadiana and thanks for reading my article!

Cheers, brian

Sorry to hear about your hiatus, but welcome back! And thanks for the great article, it really helped me understand what I had found, and it's one of the few - and the most complete - histories of the book that I found anywhere online.

[srezvan]

My Gamut #3 finally arrived this week. I'm still on the hunt for #4. I love fanzines. I pulled some early 1970s Tolkien/LOTR fanzines from an LCS while traveling about 6 years ago, and I've been hooked ever since.

[Alberto_Stein]

On 11/23/2021 at 9:23 PM, srezvan said:

My Gamut #3 finally arrived this week. I'm still on the hunt for #4. I love fanzines. I pulled some early 1970s Tolkien/LOTR fanzines from an LCS while traveling about 6 years ago, and I've been hooked ever since.

It's really fascinating how interesting those comic books are. I think that nowadays because of so many options for comic books the quality leaves much to be desired. It's sad, because comic books are the reason for many good things in my life, for example, my job. I found this site https://samploon.com/free-essays/business-ethics/ when I was looking for a good essay about some of the comic books that I have read. I was so impressed by the way some of them were written that it inspired me to become a writer. That's how I found the job that I have now.

I also collect those but Gamut #3 is missing from my collection, I thought maybe you can sell it to me.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Alberto_Stein

[B2D327]

More cool stuff to hunt for 

[Jesse-Lee]

I've got a pretty fun and exciting update (at least I think it is).

First, over the past week or so, I've expanded my Gamut collection:

Also, the copy of issue one that I got had this interesting note inside - it may be from the printer/production house at the time that Gamut was at the press? @Qalyar, I know you are a vast repository of comics info, any thoughts on this?

 

 

Second, and more importantly, I've built a website dedicated to Gamut and the Cartooning Program at Sheridan in the 1970s. Brian Campbell's great article (tagging @ecgt) was very much an inspiration for this, along with a blog post from Brad Middleton, but there still isn't (wasn't) a ton of information out there about Gamut, and about the cartooning program (technically the Media Studies - Cartooning & Graphic Story Arts Program) that ended in 1979. There's quite a bit of information to be found about Sheridan's animation programs and its long history (and importance) in animation, but I wanted more info about the comics side of things, so I figured I'd make something.

There are some great photos on the site, courtesy of alum and Gamut #4 contributor Jeff Wilson, a cartoonist and animator. I've also completed three interviews with alums of the program that are on the site, and I'm currently in the process of working on six or seven more - I'm not ready to share who those are yet, but I will say they're names that fans of Canadian comics from that time period will certainly recognize.

I'll be updating the site over the next week or so with photos and rundowns of issues two and three (issue one is on the site now), and I'm continuing the hunt for my own copy of issue four, but in the meantime I've gotten a couple of scans and screengrabs from that issue, and they're on the site as well. I was going to wait to talk about this until after I had two and three done, but I'm too eager to share.

The site is: https://gamutmagazine.org/

If you like it, please absolutely share the link around with anyone who might appreciate the site - I plan to share it far and wide as well, but it may be better received (and feel less self-promotional) from someone who didn't actually build the thing. Also, along those lines, the site is not monetized - I didn't want to capitalize on the Sheridan program or these creators' works; I just want to share them and help shine a light on this piece of comics history.

Edited August 2 by Jesse-Lee

[Jesse-Lee]

Some more cool news to share - in my conversations with Sheridan alumni for interviews for the website, one alum (editorial cartoonist Michael McDonnell) verified that there is a 1978 issue of Gamut - what I've taken to calling the "Lost Issue of Gamut." That would make the 1978 issue the fourth in the series, with the 1979 issue with Bernie Wrightson's cover the fifth and final issue. Here's a pic of the 1978 issue number four, featuring Audrey Strickland's comic strip "Leroy" :

[Jesse-Lee]

One of the artists/writers who worked on the 1979 issue of Gamut was kind enough to share a copy with me, so I've finally obtained this elusive issue - really excited about this one!

Edited August 22 by Jesse-Lee